Dave Matthews Talks New Album, Tour, Politics and Announces New Shows with Tim Reynolds

There’s a lot happening in the world of Dave Matthews.

On Thursday (July 21), Matthews announced that he and longtime collaborator Tim Reynolds will be returning to Riviera Maya, Mexico for the duo’s sixth-annual destination event on the beaches of the region.

Those shows are slated for next year—February 17-19 at Moon Palace Cancún. Additional artists will be announced for the shows and all-inclusive packages are available for sale on July 27 at 4 p.m. ET HERE.

Matthews also recently sat down with SiriusXM’s Ari Fink at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York to talk about a number of topics, from the American political landscape to Dave Matthews Band’s next album to the group’s 2022 summer tour.

And fans can check out clips and excerpts here below.

Dave Matthews Shares Update on New Album

Dave Matthews: I think we have a great record. I was like, we finished, for now, the recording and then we were mixing and my friend, Rob Evans, who’s been really the force behind getting it done and been a great, you know, it wouldn’t have happened without him and it’s been fun to work with him. And so essentially we have to just put it in the bag and send it out into the world.

Ari Fink: It’s going in the bag.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, so I think it’s in the bag, but, you know, I gotta get my shit together. I’m gonna, you know, I just gotta, cause it’s, yeah. Anyway, I’m really psyched about it, but every time I walk into the studio and we’re listening to mixes, I say, “Ooh,” and then, you know, there’s another little song.

Ari Fink: There’s a lot of good ones and some of your bandmates have even, you know, discussed here on these airwaves how much fun it is to go back and play some of that material and how interesting it would be even under a pseudonym. I think that was Rashawn’s suggestion. I thought of 10 on the fly, but we don’t have to use any of ’em, but you know, there’s so much music that you’ve made.

Dave Matthews: Just put it out. That’s something else, you know. 

Ari Fink: But we’re putting it out on SiriusXM. I mean, we get to hear it live on Friday nights and shout out to Rob Evans who has his hands on the mix here on SiriusXM every Friday night.

Dave Matthews: Oh, right. Yeah, of course. Of course I knew that, but I just, you know, making connections is not my forte.

Ari Fink: Well, you’re very focused on the album which we appreciate and we know that these things take time and, you know, are eagerly awaiting the new music whenever it is. I would imagine that that last 1% or the last half percent or maybe even once you get to 99.9% done that last 0.1% of the record must be so impossible.

Dave Matthews: Yeah. That’s the part. It’s sort of, it’s a little bit hard to clean it up and so, you know, it’s not even just like sweeping things together in the sequence and getting the art and all those things are not, you know, necessarily necessary, but I’m because I’m old, I’m attached to the idea of a collection. Maybe the next collection of songs will just be songs we put out on the internet.

Ari Fink: It could be a few, it could be…

Dave Matthews: Or the streaming. I mean, wherever you put it. The whole world is a spider web.

Ari Fink: Dave, you could put ’em anywhere or everywhere. It’s up to you.

Dave Matthews Sees Justifying Government Decisions Through Religious Beliefs as a ‘Slippery Slope’ 

Dave Matthews: I do think this is a very serious time. I’m not anti-Christian or anti-religion, but you know, if the way people are talking about Christianity and how this government should be governed by Christian ideals, and that we need to weed out those people that are examples of un-Christian or immoral behavior, that’s very dangerous language and it may seem like it’s coming from a good place, but that language can be exploited and it’s a very dangerous language. And obviously people react when this name is brought up, but if you look at old speeches from people like Hitler or Idi Amin and they talk about for the greater good for righteousness for, you know, to fight ungodliness, that is a precursor to potentially terrible, terrible, terrible times because you’re listening to ideas of one small group and that one small group is being exploited by the ideas of even a smaller group and it brings people from the margins into the mainstream, but it also takes the mainstream into marginal ideas and the ideas that should be marginalized like speaking for God or speaking for what is right or speaking for the judgment, being the judge on God’s behalf. That’s terrible, terrible, terrible rhetoric and it’s terrifying to me because these kinds of things don’t happen slowly. We have to be vigilant in this country to prevent ourselves from falling into the hands of people that will not allow it to come back without a much more desperate fight than the one we’re having right now.

Ari Fink: Absolutely man and when you analyze the language, it’s terrifying truly because we’ve seen this movie before, I mean, throughout history as you mentioned It’s just crazy and I’m so glad that you’re here to chime in on it.

Dave Matthews: Right? Morality is not something, as soon as morality becomes a tool to exclude people or include a small percentage of people and to oppress people because they are viewed as immoral or wrong, as soon as that happens, as policy, things begin to crumble and, you know, unfortunately very often in those instances, the people, the minority, the radicals that don’t like to be called radicals are much more eager to do harm and much more eager to pull triggers and commit violence and it’s just something that we should do more than hope will go away, and even if it’s our drowning hope, we should do more with it than without it.

Dave Matthews Demands Government Action in Wake of Increased Gun Violence and Roe v. Wade Overturn

Dave Matthews: The beliefs of a few people are being, you know, indulged while the, the rights of many more people are being taken away, whether it’s the right to feel free from gun violence in a public square or having the right to control your own body, you know, and that’s the part that’s sort of I think the reason that there’s a visceral response is unless you’re in support of those things, your beliefs and your hopes or what you think is right or your liberties are infringed upon, so it has a different stink to it.

Ari Fink: Because they call it freedom?

Dave Matthews: Well, and when it infringes, that’s the part, you know? It’s the reduction of rights. So these decisions are sort of, for me, seem unique in that way. Usually the decisions have been in the opposite direction whether it’s about, you know, hate crime or whether it’s about liberty or about civil rights or a lot of these decisions that are made sort of increase who’s protected and it wasn’t the case. It’s not the case right now. So hopefully we can get the other arms of government to take action, to protect people from those things. Protect people’s rights.

Ari Fink: That’s right as much can be done. Please, our fingers are crossed and I know people are sick of hearing, “Go out and vote, go out and vote,” you know, whatever it takes in addition to that, I’m totally with you.

Dave Matthews: Yeah, and it’s frustrating because there’s definitely enormous efforts to make voting, especially in big cities with more pedestrian populations, but also in underserved communities, to make it more difficult to vote. So then it’s even like, well, look, we voted and we had the house, we have the presidency again, and it seems like it’s doing nothing. It’s doing the opposite.

Ari Fink: It doesn’t seem like it. Our rights are being restricted.

Dave Matthews: Yeah and so I understand people saying, “Nothing works, voting doesn’t work,” but I do think that this, and I mean maybe it’s my drowning faith in the potential for the system, but that faith still thinks that if everybody says, “Despite your efforts to stop me from being able to have my voice heard through my vote, despite your effort to through claims of fraud, which have never been verified, despite your efforts to make it harder for me to vote, I’m still gonna vote,” and then, you know, ground level efforts to curtail those enforceable laws that are stopping people from being able to get to the polls whether it’s removing drop boxes or whatever the efforts are in different states, it’s different things, please everybody should go and vote.

Ari Fink: It’s true and I’m glad you’re hopeful about it. That gives me hope and I mean, what else is there? At this point, we don’t have as many options. You might as well try to hold onto some optimism and look for the good in humanity.

Dave Matthews: I did call it my drowning.

Ari Fink: Your drowning hope, which sounds accurate.